I am sitting on a seat that was previously covered with red fabric, now it is only gray and worn, only a few places indicate its former color. How many sat on it before me? How many nameless faces, like me, have looked out the dirty window, out there into this unreal spinning world as they drove towards their destination? Maybe he knows and would tell me if I only knew how exactly I had to ask him. But words fail me in this stuffy room where so many people consume the air. And so his secret remains, forever accessible only to him.
An old lady sits next to me, she has white hair and huge blue eyes washed out from her glasses, which must have seen a lot - good as well as bad. She is clutching a walking stick in her right hand. On the seat across from me sits a man in a gray suit, he must be in his late thirties, on his lap a laptop that he is typing listlessly.His suit shows good taste and a certain wealth, just like the laptop, but you have to pay for everything, some later others sooner. He must have paid early, his eyes are old and tired, the first gray strands are visible in his jet-black hair. Will someone be waiting for him at home? - Probably nothing more than an empty apartment and more work to sink into. Next to him is a young woman, probably a student, because she has curious eyes and a patch backpack in front of her feet, from which a campus map peeps, a romance novel in her hand. She is completely absorbed in it and sometimes giggles softly, the book is already old, often read and with dog-ears on the pages.
I see all of this in the reflection of the dirty window, and I see myself, but my image doesn't tell me anything else. It just shows a girl with empty dreamy eyes. Whatever others may think of me, it remains closed to me.There is a special kind of silence on the train, there is no real silence, you can hear the rustling of leaves, coughing, breathing ... and yet it is quiet, as if time has stood still for the travelers. We are all locked up here together on this train, without knowing each other, on the way to nowhere ... It is a forced togetherness of complete strangers that nobody really likes. There are hardly any conversations, everyone is alone.
The train stops, jerks briefly and we are back to normal time. The locks open - people get out and in. None of my people go, they sit down without looking up.
A group of teenagers get in, they are loud and carry beer cans with them. The businessman looks up angrily for a moment, but immediately lowers his gaze again when the boys sit down in the section next to us. There are four in total. You laugh out loud at something, it probably doesn't matter about what. I read hopelessness in their looks, they lost themselves and that a long time ago.You are dead, but you don't know yet. And I'm definitely not going to tell you.
Nobody pays attention to them, everyone tries to keep the silence, even if it has to be harder for them, because the air is filled with voices and it gets even more stuffy.
They slit open the seats with long silver knives, white bulk oozes out of them like intestines and I involuntarily wonder whether they are feeling pain? They were surrounded by people for so long, shouldn't something have rubbed off on them, at least a little bit?
Still silence, some breathe faster, the mood changes imperceptibly.
After they've had enough of smearing their initials on the window with pens, they're looking for something new to do. So their eyes pan around on the train, looking for a new victim. The student gets in her sights with the novel. One of them leans forward to snatch it from her hand. She gives a short scream of shock.Then she is silent and looks at her lap, where her empty hands are clinging to each other as if looking for support and security. The guys laughingly read aloud to the book, their words look dirty and indistinct, they twist the meaning, they can hardly string together a sentence. I have to hold back a smile, because that would amount to suicidal thoughts.
One leans forward and hisses, "Do you want it back?"
She doesn't say anything.
They laugh, something about them reminds me of the trolls that story was about when I was a kid. In the beginning they were human, but anger and anger grew at everything and everyone and so they began to transform ...
One says, "If she doesn't want it, maybe we should throw it off the train, right?"
Involuntarily she says: "No."
“Did she say something?” Another collective laugh.
Another: "Hey, maybe we should stop. That's not exactly nice and Christian!"
He grabs the book and holds it out to the student.Worst of all was the tiny glimmer of hope in her eyes, until it began to tear pages out in front of her incredulous eyes and toss them at her feet. Your quiet powerlessness and the silence of the others. The old lady stared at her cane and the businessman seemed to be seeing something incredibly interesting on his screen. Nobody helped her - not even me. But at least I didn't look away.
He throws the cover in front of her feet, the golden letters glow sardonically in the artificial light. It doesn't move, much like a paralyzed deer in a car's headlights.
The train stops, people get on and off. Nobody pays attention to the book leaves either, they just step on them, their gaze fixed inward.
I get up, walk past the old lady and then kneel down and start picking up the leaves, one by one. I can feel the concentration of looks in my back. But I keep going, then I slip back into my seat and place it on the student's lap.A snort, then a boy's hand that grabs the torn items and then tosses them around again. I briefly return his piercing look in the window glass and then get up again, I collect sheet by sheet. I look around searching to see if I've forgotten one. Another thing is lying at the old lady's feet, I want to grab it, but she gets ahead of me and then holds it out to me with downcast eyes. I nod to her and want to get up when someone grabs my arm from behind. Furious, he tears the pages out of my hand and spreads them back on the floor. I just smile, free my arm from its grip and slide down one more time, gathering the leaves, trying not to get within their reach. Some fellow travelers come to my aid, hand me pages. I nod to them gratefully. Back at my desk, I sort the sheets of paper, none of which is missing, put them in order, hand them to the student and she takes them.One of the boys stands up, probably wanting to start the same game all over again - how resourceful they are.
The businessman stands up unmoved and says to the student: "Would you be ready to dive the place with me?"
She nods and slides over.
The train stops again, I get off, smile briefly in goodbye, take a last look at those who stay behind and then disappear into the crowd of those getting off.
Let the crowd carry me along, manage to get to a timetable. I don't even know what city I'm in because I should have got off the train several stations before. But it doesn't really matter that I rode this train longer than planned. The choice of the respective trains is always a mere calculation, I look at the map and choose, decide at what time I get on and when I will get off again. I decide, and if I no longer like my move, I look for a new one.It's that simple because there are so many different moves. And at some point the right person will be there ...